By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
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Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#2I frequently read this kind of articles on the web, and every time I'm amazed by it. Preparing food yourself is the rule in my corner of the world (the Netherlands) - going out for dinner an exception. And up until a few years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a public place that actually served breakfast.
Of course, not every Dutchmen is a great cook (to say the least ;-) but I think you'd have a hard time to find a Dutch adult who doesn't have the means or is not able to prepare (much) more elaborate meals than discussed in this article. And probably this holds true for most of Europe as well. Maybe even for the rest of the world except the US?
Having said that though, I feel that the situation is slowly changing in recent years - primarily for the wealthier part of the population, but still. Kind of makes me sad if I see products in the supermarket which are 'ready made' and 4 times as expensive as the individual ingredients, while knowing that making the same dish from scratch would hardly take longer than preparing the 'ready made' variant and be healthier and cheaper to boot.
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#3I frequently read this kind of articles on the web, and every time I'm amazed by it. Preparing food yourself is the rule in my corner of the world (the Netherlands) - going out for dinner an exception. And up until a few years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a public place that actually served breakfast. Of course, not every Dutchmen is a great cook (to say the least ;-) but I think you'd have a hard time to find a…
> Maybe even for the rest of the world except the US?
No, Canada is pretty bad too. I don't know anyone under the age of 30 who cooks, all they do is eat out every single day for every meal.
If they do cook at home it's a frozen pizza or a packaged pasta such as Kraft Dinner.
You're right it's very expensive, I don't know where they get the money. That $10 burger and fries could buy enough food for a few days such as rice, potatoes, pasta.
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#4I frequently read this kind of articles on the web, and every time I'm amazed by it. Preparing food yourself is the rule in my corner of the world (the Netherlands) - going out for dinner an exception. And up until a few years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a public place that actually served breakfast. Of course, not every Dutchmen is a great cook (to say the least ;-) but I think you'd have a hard time to find a…
"Having said that though, I feel that the situation is slowly changing in recent years"
You have to be careful when comparing the US to the rest of the world, because the US is the one breaking the ground of new levels of relatively-well-distributed wealth. (Put aside the question of how well for a moment, please.) For instance, it turns out that the US did not have uniquely bad dietary habits around flour and sugar, it's just that the US was the first to discover people really like to eat that crap and could afford the infrastructure to deploy it; now the bad diets and the consequences are spreading like wildfire as the requisite level of wealth is spreading. (dhughes says Canada is there too, certainly they have that level of wealth too.)
Correspondingly, it is hard to know whether the rest of the world cooks their own meals and don't eat out much because of some sort of intrinsic betterness or culture, or because they simply can't afford it yet. Once people can afford it in more places they may be more inclined to eat out. And if they do, they'll start losing the ability to cook overall. Culture may induce some lag but there's no particularly compelling reason to think that more countries won't follow along.
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#5I'd rather build one than become one.
http://www.willowgarage.com/blog/2010/10/21/tum-rosie-and-pr...
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#6I frequently read this kind of articles on the web, and every time I'm amazed by it. Preparing food yourself is the rule in my corner of the world (the Netherlands) - going out for dinner an exception. And up until a few years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a public place that actually served breakfast. Of course, not every Dutchmen is a great cook (to say the least ;-) but I think you'd have a hard time to find a…
My sample of the US is not large, say between 50 and 100 households in a country of 300 million persons. It tends to be skewed towards the more educated middle to upper middle class. (That is, towards more or less the NY Times demographic.) But the great majority of those households have at least one adult who cooks decently. The person I can think of who goes through the most carry-out lives the sort of frazzled suburban life where the kids have lessons, practices, etc. at frequent intervals, requiring a lot of driving.
And somebody seems to be cooking in the poorer neighborhood a short walk away. The grocery stores have fresh vegetables, meat, 10-pound bags of rice, and so on, along with the canned stuff.
I wonder whether the article isn't aimed at readers in their 20s, on their own for a little while, but not really accustomed to a settled life.
(After looking at dhughes's post: my sample is also skewed toward the baby boomers. Caveat lector.)
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#7I frequently read this kind of articles on the web, and every time I'm amazed by it. Preparing food yourself is the rule in my corner of the world (the Netherlands) - going out for dinner an exception. And up until a few years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a public place that actually served breakfast. Of course, not every Dutchmen is a great cook (to say the least ;-) but I think you'd have a hard time to find a…
> Maybe even for the rest of the world except the US? No, Canada is pretty bad too. I don't know anyone under the age of 30 who cooks, all they do is eat out every single day for every meal. If they do cook at home it's a frozen pizza or a packaged pasta such as Kraft Dinner. You're right it's very expensive, I don't know where they get the money. That $10 burger and fries could buy enough food for a few days such as…
I wouldn't generalize so fast. I live in a student dorm in Quebec where everyone is under 30, and everybody I know cooks themselves. At least basic stuff like toasts or pasta. It's not really practical to eat out every meal in the first place, given the walking distance to the nearest restaurant. Every young adult (~20 years) in my family cooks and owns a set of pots and pans. YMMV.
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#8I frequently read this kind of articles on the web, and every time I'm amazed by it. Preparing food yourself is the rule in my corner of the world (the Netherlands) - going out for dinner an exception. And up until a few years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a public place that actually served breakfast. Of course, not every Dutchmen is a great cook (to say the least ;-) but I think you'd have a hard time to find a…
In the U.S.A. entire generations have given up on cooking (mainly for apparent comfort), and therefore have forgotten about it. Literally. Even worse, they are therefore incapable of passing on this cultural "rule" either. These kinds of articles are weak window-dressing attempts. Processed food lobby is far more powerful[1,2] (though I suspect Dutch know about industrialized food), so the NYT article is somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jamie_oliver.html
And the tragedy is, that Jamie Oliver has failed to bring in change in schools in in the U.K., so he went off for a larger market (U.S.A.). It is a niche area.
[1] http://www.foodincmovie.com/
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/panorama/2010/12/supermarkets_wha...
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#9I frequently read this kind of articles on the web, and every time I'm amazed by it. Preparing food yourself is the rule in my corner of the world (the Netherlands) - going out for dinner an exception. And up until a few years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a public place that actually served breakfast. Of course, not every Dutchmen is a great cook (to say the least ;-) but I think you'd have a hard time to find a…
In the U.S.A. entire generations have given up on cooking (mainly for apparent comfort), and therefore have forgotten about it. Literally. Even worse, they are therefore incapable of passing on this cultural "rule" either. These kinds of articles are weak window-dressing attempts. Processed food lobby is far more powerful[1,2] (though I suspect Dutch know about industrialized food), so the NYT article is somewhat ton…
> In the U.S.A. entire generations have given up on cooking (mainly for apparent comfort), and therefore have forgotten about it. Literally. Even worse, they are therefore incapable of passing on this cultural "rule" either.
This is exactly it. The marketing power behind processed foods has kept generations of Americans from realizing that they're even able to do things that every household did itself when our great-grandparents were alive.
In our home, I bake our sandwich bread. Even my grandmother marvels that I do so, but with a KitchenAid it takes me hardly any time, costs practically nothing ($0.44/loaf) and produces far better bread than any I've found in a store. When my kids begin to need lunchmeat, I'll roast our own turkey and beef: it'll be cheaper, it'll taste better, it won't have preservatives, and my kids will learn from me what I never learned from my own family: that we can feed ourselves.
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#10I frequently read this kind of articles on the web, and every time I'm amazed by it. Preparing food yourself is the rule in my corner of the world (the Netherlands) - going out for dinner an exception. And up until a few years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a public place that actually served breakfast. Of course, not every Dutchmen is a great cook (to say the least ;-) but I think you'd have a hard time to find a…
"Having said that though, I feel that the situation is slowly changing in recent years" You have to be careful when comparing the US to the rest of the world, because the US is the one breaking the ground of new levels of relatively-well-distributed wealth. (Put aside the question of how well for a moment, please.) For instance, it turns out that the US did not have uniquely bad dietary habits around flour and sugar,…
You have to be careful when comparing the US to the rest of the world, because the US is the one breaking the ground of new levels of relatively-well-distributed wealth.
Not so much, see here: http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/mint-map-global-wealth-distr...
Most of the "western" countries are ahead of the US for distributing wealth amongst the population.